Brewer John Harris sounds pretty sure of himself when he says the beer will bring people into Ecliptic, his new brewery/restaurant in Portland’s Mississippi district.

As well he might, he being one of Oregon's longest serving craft brewers and the man who devised recipes for Black Butte Porter, Mirror Pond Pale Ale and Obsidian Stout; who was the first McMenamins brewer to make Hammerhead as it's brewed today --- an all-grain version instead of using malt extracts; and who ran Full Sail's Brewers Reserve program, formulating the Sunspot series, Slipknot and Hop Pursuit among many others. He's worked as a professional brewer for three decades, but until Ecliptic opened in mid-October, always for someone else: the McMenamin brothers, Deschutes --- he was their first brewer --- and then 20 years at Full Sail's Portland brewery, which he left in 2012 to start his own place.

“Scary? Yes it was scary,” he said. “I was leaving the womb, leaving a salary, benefits, insurance and all the rest. But I figured that I was going to be 50 soon, and if I ever wanted to do my own place, the time was now. Full Sail is a great place to work, a great employer, but I needed to move on. I could see all the beers I wanted to brew and I knew they weren't going to get brewed there --- I wanted to get away from production brewing and back to the more creative side.”

Because Harris is a stand-up guy, he quit before looking for backers, because he didn't want word of his impending move to get out while he was still on the Full Sail payroll. After a long and sometimes painful lesson in commercial real estate --- one prospective landlord wanted 10 percent of Ecliptic's profits as part of the lease --- he found Ecliptic's new home, a large former body shop on the south edge of the Mississippi district above the Widmer Brothers brewery.

“If anyone had told me how hard it would be to find a building, I would've had serious second thoughts,” he says. “But here we are a year and a half later in the best building I looked at, in the best neighborhood, with a big parking lot, room for outdoor seating and room inside for expansion including a bottling line some day.”

Spica Hefe Pils is a cloudy gold like a hefeweizen, but the flavor is all pilsner. John Foyston

In addition to the showpiece 15-barrel brewery, Ecliptic has a taproom and a 130-seat restaurant, because the second half of Harris's quote about the beer bringing people in is that the food will bring them back. “I want to elevate both,” he says. “I want to serve world-class beer and world-class food...I sometimes call Ecliptic a foodie's brewpub, but I think the term brewpub pigeonholes you, that people lower their expectations about the food.”

Harris has already said that he wants Ecliptic to be on the list of Portland's 100 best restaurants, and thanks to Chef Michael Molitor's efforts, that seems an attainable goal. Molitor was previously sous chef at Pazzo. Ecliptic is astronomical term for the plane of the planets' orbits about the sun, and Harris says the pub's name is about the seasons --- our journey around the sun --- so seasonal ingredients and beers are the emphasis.

As part of the main menu, a smaller seasonal menu will change regularly and currently has six items, including pale ale braised lamb shank; chicory salad with Oregon bleu cheese, quince and hazelnut vinaigrette; and porcini kibbeh with fall squash, bulgur wheat and yogurt. “I'm expecting to discuss my seasonal beers with the chef,” Harris says, “so I can make beers that highlight the dishes and ingredients in the seasonal menu.”

Yes, you can get a pub burger at Ecliptic, a half-pound Northwest beef burger with pancetta, red onion and aged gruyere. You can order fish & chips: beer-battered Pacific cod with celery salad and tarragon aioli. But you can also find a trout po' boy --- cornmeal crusted Idaho trout with jalapeno mayo on a hoagie roll.

The restaurant is a calm space with dark gray stub walls pierced through with glowing constellations, part of Ecliptic's astronomical theme that includes beer names --- Arcturus IPA --- and the dining room chandelier. It's an elongated figure eight called an analemma, which can be seen on some globes: if you plotted the sun's position at the same time of day every day for a year, its apparent motion through the seasons would be the analemma's figure eight.

Getting the place open has been a bit of a thrash involving dozens of tradespeople, landscaping and a fair bit of heavy construction. As things quiet down and the crew finds its stride, Harris has plans that include bottling the brewery's first of many seasonal beers on the day after Thanksgiving. He's also going to take advantage of the big parking lot and devote part of it to outdoor seating in the spring --- Ecliptic has a wonderful view over the river and downtown Portland and would be just the place to contemplate rush-hour traffic on the Fremont Bridge with a pint of cold Ecliptic beer.

Here are some of the beers on tap and in the tank:

Arcturus IPA: This is Harris’ first Ecliptic IPA but by no means his last. Harris recognizes that a Portland pub must have an IPA on tap, and 7.4-percent-Arcturus is a worthy one. But Harris also plans to brew many beers once or twice only. After all, Ecliptic is about brewerly creativity and not production brewing.

Spica Hefe Pils: “I just invented a new style,” Harris says. Pilsners are ordinarily lagered at cold temperatures for weeks or months to give them their crystal clarity. This one wasn't, and as a result, it's a cloudy gold like a hefeweizen, but the flavor is all pilsner. It's a fine refreshing beer, and I hope it becomes a regular.

Rigel Sparkling Ale: Essentially a light cream ale (though made with all grain and none of the corn the style calls for) with the addition of five gallons of Riesling grape juice. “There's definitely a grape-y aroma,” says Harris, “but on the tongue, the fruit notes are more in the background. It's an easy drinker, and a great answer to the most common brewpub question, 'What's your lightest beer?'”

Illuminating the Path: This is definitely not an answer to the lightest beer question, but it is Ecliptic's second collaboration beer. His first was with Gigantic Brewing near Reed College; this one was with Cigar City Brewing in Tampa, Florida. Harris calls it an Oregon/Florida hybrid with botanicals from both states --- rose hips and marionberries from Oregon; hibiscus and acacia berries from Florida. It's a ruddy brown and aged in Oregon pinot barrels, and Ecliptic will likely be one of the few places on the Left Coast where you can buy a bottle.